31 May 2008

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday morning I had qualifying exams for my graduate program. I was happy with Wednesday's exam. I wish I'd nailed one more question on each of the other two exams. I'll receive a pass/fail verdict in about three weeks.
Regardless of the outcome, I'm happy to be moving on to other stuff.

28 May 2008

I've got many in process, but to my knowledge this is the first one that's gone all the way through. Thankfully the claims pack more punch than the abstract. In theory this one covers the charging infrastructure for plugging my electric car into your power outlet and routing the billing back to my electricity bill.

Method, apparatus and computer program product for reporting energy
consumption

Abstract

Energy consumption meters are associated with owners who hold accounts
with a power supplier. The meters are assigned meter identifiers and
identifiers for their respective owners. Such a meter may be a parent
meter having associated submeters. In response to being plugged into a
power source from the power supplier, such a meter reports its owner
identifier and meter identifier to the supplier. Also, in response to
being plugged into a power source supplied by one of the parent meters, a
meter communicates with the parent meter. This establishes that the
parent meter is associated with the submeter. The submeter measures
energy delivered reports this to the power supplier. Also, the indicated
association of the submeter to the parent meter is reported to the power
supplier. The receipt of this information enables the power supplier to
debit and credit owner accounts in a manner permitting temporary
associations of meters.

Receiving display station on a communication network for accessing and displaying network documents associated with a television program display in which the text stream of the TV program on the display station provides user selectable links to predetermined network source sites